


You're Only Sorry You Got Caught

by sweetNsimple



Series: "Morally and Legally Unacceptable Histories" ~ Nanao-chan [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Assassin!Steve, Clueless!Tony, M/M, Not A Lot of Assassinating Going On Sadly, SHIELD Assassins, Superhusbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 01:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1325902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Don't tell me you're sorry 'cause you're not/ Baby, when I know you're only sorry you got caught/ But you put on quite a show" ~ Rihanna's "Take A Bow"</p><p>It would have been one thing if, out of the Avengers, he had fallen for Bruce or Thor, or even Clint or Natasha.  Those would have been messy in their own, more straightforward ways.  </p><p>But this was Anthony Edward Stark – genius, billionaire, philanthropist... husband.  To Steve Rogers, the secret identity of Captain America.</p><p>Steve Rogers, the public identity of the SHIELD assassin Patriot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Only Sorry You Got Caught

Steve Grant Rogers was not on friendly terms with fear. He felt it, like every human being did, but it wasn't something he let control him. It was something he rose above and squashed when it came around, defeating it as purposefully and determinedly as one would the common cold. It wasn't something he laughed at, because fear was healthy and he didn't want the kids who looked up to him and the adults who idolized him to think that fear made them weak.

 

He smiled at it, though, like an inside joke. Because fear was something he had lived with his entire life in one form or another. Fear of not living through the next winter. Fear of having no food to eat. Fear of losing his mother. Fear of fighting his last fight. Fear of being homeless. Fear of losing Bucky.

 

Fear was not unfamiliar to him. That was what made it so unfriendly.

 

It had, at least, been manageable. Now, though...

 

Now, he was terrified. And he had been for the past two months, ever since the day of his marriage. Before he had gotten married, he had always felt a muted form of this same kind of fear – fear that he would be discovered, that he couldn't hide any longer. Fear that his lover and best friend and significant other would not, could not, accept him totally. Steve's secrets were SHIELD's secrets, and SHIELD hid its secrets behind firewalls and trapdoors, steel and cement, code and sacrifices.

 

For SHIELD's part, they had warned him not to start a relationship with the man he now called his husband. They had told him – Director Fury, Assistant Director Hill, Romanov, Barton, Coulson – that it was practically suicide. To be fair, he _had_ tried to stay away. The man was so, so _him_ , though. So imperfect and perfect and unique and familiar. Steve had been drawn in, trapped, and he didn't even mind the barbed wires that threatened his life and way of living. 

 

It would have been one thing if, out of the Avengers, he had fallen for Bruce or Thor, or even Clint or Natasha. Those would have been messy in their own, more straightforward ways. 

 

But this was Anthony Edward Stark – genius, billionaire, philanthropist... husband. To Steve Rogers, the secret identity of Captain America.

 

Steve Rogers, the public identity of  the SHIELD assassin Patriot.

 

Natasha was Black Widow. Clint Barton was Hawkeye. One did not walk into an assassination with their real name going over the comm lines. Or, in Steve's position, their superhero name either. Natasha and Clint were established as spies, and, separately, as an assassin and a sniper. 

 

Steve was no Black Widow, Hawkeye, or even Bucky. But what he was, was a handsome, young man who had learned to fake a smile and how to charm a stranger. He had that nice, earnest face with those big, honest blue eyes. Maybe he didn't have the forgettable features that were more treasured in a business where one never wanted to be recognized, but he had that personality that made him dismissible.

 

Naive, gullible,  _blonde_ . When SHIELD put him out there and gave him a target, what his targets never saw was the strategist, the Captain, the leader, the photographic memory – they just saw pretty eyes in a pretty face on top of a pretty body, and, golly gee, could this young man be any more stupid and transparent?

 

Barton had laughed when he realized just how easily Steve could use his body, his greatest weapon, to make like a newborn puppy in the eyes of his prey.

 

“I think you and Nat on a mission together could get about any job done,” he'd said once, amused and serious all at once. “'Probably have to follow after you guys to make sure no one jumped you.”

 

“Are you saying we can't take care of ourselves?” Natasha had asked with a noble eyebrow sliding up.

 

“Nah. Just saying that everyone around you probably couldn't.”

 

Sometimes, Steve and Nat did get assigned to a task together. They made a beautiful pair, and looked so comfortable together. And helpless. Him, big and 'dumb'. Natasha, small and feminine. 

 

Steve had six different aliases by the time he first kissed Tony, but the one on the comm lines remained 'Patriot'. 

 

And, everyday since he kissed Tony at the alter, he had waited for his husband to meet him at the front door with hard, betrayed eyes and a set mouth. Maybe starting out with, “So,  _Patriot_ , when were you planning on telling me that Captain America isn't  _all_ that you are?” or even, “What do you think sounds good for bed tonight? Charles D. Tavern? Baxter Sullivan? Shiloh Rochester? No? How about one of your  _other_ names then, you fucking liar?”. 

 

He wasn't so much worried about Tony finding out he was an  _assassin_ , because Tony already knew Clint and Natasha and didn't treat them any differently for it, and he also had a Hulk in his tower as well a Norse god that occasionally visited. He was scared shitless of Tony  _finding out_ that he was an assassin.

 

Tony hated secrets. Tony hated being lied to. Nothing shut him down faster than thinking he wasn't hearing the whole truth. Nothing could make that smart, sassy smile turn into something frigid and  sharp as fast as realizing that he was the last to know. After Obadiah, after his father, after countless people who had walked all over Tony and trampled his heart, Steve knew that there would be no forgiveness if Tony ever realized that Steve Rogers wasn't just Steve and Captain America.

 

Tony had taken a good long three years to let go of his grudge against Natasha for her role as Natalia. Steve, married to the man, a SHIELD assassin, could not go through the same.

 

Because he loved Tony. With all his heart. And he didn't like Tony at all at the same time because that man drove him  _wild_ . Tony was selfish and selfless, thoughtless and thoughtful,  self-destructive and overprotective, open and closed, light and dark and all the shades of gray in between. He spent money like he didn't know its true worth because he didn't  _care_ about the money. Yes, he lived expensively, but he could have just as easily, if not with some adjusting, flourished in an apartment complex's basement working for a n autobody shop. He did what he loved and he excelled at it. He burned for Steve to touch and was icy when hurt, stubborn and careless and so, so much. Most of the time, too much.

 

And he would laugh at Steve where others wouldn't dare, pick at him and prod at old wounds till they didn't hurt anymore, rough up his hair and wrinkle his clothes just to loosen his image, and Steve loved him for all the things he did and ground his teeth at the same time.

 

It was this person, this sloppy, barely contained person, that Steve had given himself to and taken for himself.

 

Not for one second did Director Fury ever dare not to remind Steve that Tony had practically created his own back door into their databases and online files. Some things could be kept on paper, locked away in cabinets – and those would certainly be safer from Tony than any digital folder for a longer space of time if not forever – but not everything.

 

So Steve waited and he walked through the door and he held his breath. He waited for the hateful smile and the dark, guarded eyes, the frosty words and defensive stance.

 

All he ever got was a distracted, “Oh, hey, sweetheart” if Tony was busy on something else or a, “Hey there, hubby ~” when Tony was waiting for him with that Devil-Don't-Even-Wanna-Know grin. 

 

Tony was completely, utterly clueless.

 

It was equal parts relieving and stressing every time he came back home and Tony still welcomed him back. Tony didn't know, so he could keep loving him and gently, carefully, help Tony to love him too. 

 

But  _Tony didn't know_ , not yet, so when would he find out?

 

Steve was still up in the wee hours of the early dawn, just a little after Tony had collapsed into bed beside him, muttering  inconsequential , mathematical impossibilities beneath his breath till the moment he began to snore. He brushed back Tony's hair, traced the curve of his cheek with his thumb, tickled his eyelashes with his breath, and simply watched.

 

He didn't know how long he would have before this was taken away.

 

~::~

 

“I think I should tell him. Before he finds out.”

 

“At this point, that will be just as bad as him finding out all by himself,” Black Widow said. She looked very elegant and incredibly tiny from her place at his side. And strangely neat and pristine as well.

 

“ _I think it'd be better if he found out for himself right about now,”_ came Hawkeye's voice through his earpiece. _“It'd give you a few years to come up with an apology while he cooled down, but it'd be better than him just throwing you out before you can add in there how SHIELD didn't assign you to seduce him.”_

 

Patriot thought about going against their advice, faulty as it was. For just a moment.

 

Then he sighed and helped Black Widow to the front doors of the large and now eerily quiet manor like a true gentleman. He walked around the bodies out of respect while Black Widow respected no one but who she chose to and stepped royally over them.

 

Patriot loved Tony, he truly did... And when he had first began a relationship with him, maybe he had thought about revealing his secondary skill set. That chance had slipped away, though, under the restrictions and guidelines set by his employer, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcements, and Logistics Division. More popularly known as SHIELD. He didn't always follow the rules, and he was complacent to threats even less so.

 

SHIELD was adept at making both, however, at a personal level. And if some of those threats had subtly and so sweetly been directed towards Tony, Steve had taken his rage out in the gym instead of on the division's lawyers and higher-ups.

 

Five months after he had married Tony, he wondered if those threats were still in place. Surely, there was a privacy waiver for spouses and significant others somewhere. Phil would know.

 

And, chances were, Phil wouldn't tell him. As much as Coulson looked up to him and didn't mind Tony, he still adamantly refused to speak on Steve's behalf with Director Fury and Assistant Director Hill in informing Tony about Patriot.

 

There was a list of reasons and even a slideshow presentation of why it was a Bad Idea.

 

All of those restrictions and all of that red tape, however, would eventually attract Tony's attention. If Tony hadn't been punished yet for violating private and classified SHIELD information, then he couldn't be punished for stumbling upon the inevitable, right?

 

Patriot certainly hoped so.

 

~::~  
  


Eight months.

 

Twelve months.

 

Fifteen months.

 

Seventeen months.

 

_Tony never found out_ .

 

Tony was better at secret keeping than most would believe him capable. This was a man of incredible and unbelievable intelligence, who had practically fathered and raised the new era with his technology and clean energy. He hadn't built his millions into billions and sauntered his way to the top of the food chain by giving everything away.

 

There was a two-month period during their marriage where Steve had been completely paranoid and had thought Tony knew and was just waiting for Steve to crack and admit to it. He'd walked around with his eyes glazed over, always on the edge of manic, awkward laughter, somehow just barely holding onto his sanity. Tony had been particularly concerned about him during that time, and Steve had discovered that Tony could be particularly mothering when the opportunity presented itself.

 

Just a little over one and a half years of marriage, and Tony was still clueless. Tony didn't know about Patriot, about Steve's dozen aliases, about the blood on his hands that he dragged over Tony's bronzed skin and clenched in his dark hair.

 

“Y'know, why don't you just drop it?” Barton asked.

 

Steve gave a wry smile. “Sick of hearing me talk about it, aren't you?”

 

“No, not that – well, yeah, _that_ , 'cause I am getting really fucking tired of you working yourself into the loony bin about it – but I mean, drop doing this job. You're Captain America – I think that's about all you have to be. Not to knock you're skill. I didn't think you'd be so good at this business. Just saying, y'know? You don't have to do this, your contract's up.”

 

Steve dragged his eyes away from the window to stare at Barton blankly. 

 

Clint shrugged. “Just a suggestion.”

 

Steve almost  _did_ smile then. 

 

Because if it had been just that easy to stop doing it, to just be Captain America and Steve Grant Rogers and Tony's husband, that was what he would have been from the very moment he could be. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

That, though, was as possible as him divorcing Tony. Which was to say, very much improbable if not slightly impossible. He had been to  _war_ . World War II. Here in this day and age, he didn't fight as Captain America so much as pose, and that brought back memories from his USO days. Certainly, there was crime, and the Avengers handled it when the police force, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and hero vigilantes needed them to. Tony was definitely a shining beacon to the villains of the world.

 

He had fought and he had shot and he had taken and he had conquered. He hadn't made the war winnable, hadn't taken HYDRA down, by playing nice and smiling just right. He had  _killed_ and had left behind more bodies than he had taken prisoners. Camps and bases had burned to the ground, smoke billowing to the sky, had been shut down and knocked over or  taken over.

 

Maybe being an assassin didn't have the straightforward, physical twang to it that he was more suited for, but it was a far cry closer to the war he had fought, the war he had wanted to fight, than just being a national icon who occasionally fought his own allies when they got out line and contained prison outbreaks as well as fought off aliens of various types.

 

Captain America had been a performing monkey once. Now he felt like that was more than half of his job description  yet again. Being Patriot, coming out here alone or with Clint and Natasha, doing what he did in the privacy of a backstage empire while political and social issues took the stage by storm, was what he needed to feel useful and proud, dignified and worthy.

 

Tony was what he needed for Steve, to be human and alive. Tony was his night light and his teddy bear, his lover and friend, his enemy and ally, that itch just out of reach and much needed warmth that was never too far away.

 

And maybe he should put Tony above all else, but Patriot, Captain America, was not content with Tony alone, just as Tony could never give up Iron Man. 

 

~::~

 

Steve was possibly a bad man. As the saying went, “You're only sorry you got caught”, and that about summed up the love triangle between his career, himself, and his husband.

 

There was no guilt or shame over what he did. He did not sympathize what his targets or negotiate with them. He could  take them down without an apology or pause . 

 

He had once told Erskine that he didn't want to shoot anyone. He just didn't like bullies. That was still true – there was no glee in taking a life, no joy in pulling the trigger, and no excitement in the knowledge that it was him or them. The opposite was also true, though, in that it didn't hurt to do all those things. It didn't effect him negatively to march forward and end things.

 

It made him feel accomplished to do all that he did, to get a job done and take a step closer to a more justified future.

 

He wasn't sorry for what he did. If he was honest with himself, and, with the secrets he had, he was maybe the only person he could be honest with barring Natasha and Clint (Coulson would be obligated to share everything he told him and Fury and Hill were not always the good guys to have knowing every niche and dent of a person's armor), he wasn't even sorry for hiding it from Tony.

 

When the day would come, he would only be sorry that Tony had found out.

 

~::~

 

“Hey there, hubby.” Tony was all hooded eyes and lascivious grins as he cornered Steve against the door, hands coming down his sides and resting on his hips. “Welcome home. How long before One-Eye steals you away again?”

 

Steve all but melted into the contours of Tony's body and the hard surface of the door behind him. He let his arms come casually around Tony's shoulders and waist to drag him closer. “He didn't tell me, so I think I'm here to stay for a little while.”

 

“Damn. Maybe I'll actually have time to get sick of having you around.”

 

Steve smiled and dragged his short nails down the nape of Tony's neck, enjoying the full-body shudder that racketed him. “Wouldn't that be a shame.”

 

“Definitely would be,” Tony agreed solemnly. “My loving, doting, incredibly sexy husband should definitely strip tease for me – you know, to keep my affections.”

 

Steve jacked up an eyebrow. “That easy to keep you around, huh?”

 

“Well, I wouldn't say _easy_... You're just very persuasive.”

 

“Without clothes on.”

 

“Have you ever seen me say no to you while you're strutting in your Fourth of July suit?”

 

He smiled. “Now that I think about it...”

 

“Exactly.” Tony nipped his jaw. “But, seriously, though – it's great that SHIELD can think up a hundred-and-one uses for Capsicle, but I'd like my husband home with me a _little_ more. I have needs, needs my husband should be looking to. Wanna know where my husband was just this morning when I had an unexpected and awkward erection?”

 

Pakistan. “Where?”

 

“Fucking Canada!”

 

“Wow, that's surprising.”

 

Tony snorted. “Tell me about it.”

 

“Well, your husband's home now,” Steve told him. He let his hands wander. “Anything you want to do with him right now?”

 

Tony hummed pleasantly, groping at him. “I can think of a few fun things.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Dannams - "Assassin!Steve who kills people for SHIELD then comes home to clueless!Tony?"
> 
> This... did not turn out nearly as dark as I had planned it to. I almost decided against putting it in this series. I'll probably try my hand at a Version 2 where Steve actually revels in his role as an assassin and has pleasant, deep thoughts about taking lives... Or maybe not. I followed the flow and went down the wrong river, I'm not sure if I can paddle my way back. 
> 
> As always, if I need to add a tag or if someone feels I need enlightened about anything - absolutely ANYTHING - let me know. Thank you and have a good day.


End file.
